Colorado University Athletics
COACH BARNETT?S PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
BOULDER ? The University of Colorado held its weekly press conference Tuesday at the Dal Ward Athletic Center, as head coach Gary Barnett addressed the media about last week’s game at Kansas State and this week's matchup with No. 1 Oklahoma (5:10 p.m. MDT). The following contains quotes from the afternoon press session.
ON FORMER CU QUARTERBACK JOHN HESSLER?“The entire Colorado football family wants to send all of its prayers and thoughts to the Hessler family and with John as he fights this fight that he is in right now. I just hope they know that we are all thinking about them and thinking about John and praying for him. If there were a way that we could fight this fight with him or for him, we would do that.”
ON LAST WEEK’S GAME AT KANSAS STATE?“It was a missed opportunity for us in a lot of ways. We let it slip away, not to take anything away from Kansas State, but we certainly gave them some easy opportunities to put points on the board and created a hole for ourselves that we just weren’t able to dig out of and overcome. Gabe Nyenhuis played an outstanding football game " he has been a really consistent player for us this year. Marwan Hage and Karl Allis played well for us on the offensive line. I thought that our receivers played well. Brian Calhoun had an outstanding day. We’ve got lots of things to build on and lots of things to think positively about, and that’s really where we are going to put all of our energy and that’s where we’re going to put all of our thoughts. Of course we are going to try to correct all of our mistakes that are correctable and keep pounding them, keep thinking football and keep thinking about the right things.”
ON OKLAHOMA?“The opportunity that comes in here this week is huge. It’s a huge opportunity for our team on national television. We’re playing a team that, when it’s all said and done, may be the best team to play for a while. They’re really good at every position; they’re good at all phases of the game. They’ve changed a little bit; they are really more of a pure passing team than they were a year ago. Jason White is running the show and doing a great job. Their receivers are veteran guys that make big plays. They understand the system inside and out. Their offensive line is very athletic. This is a team that on both sides of the ball that was recruited after their national championship year, and they’re all juniors and they should be right where they are. They recruited well, they’re playing well, they’re coached well, playing with a great deal of energy and they are a hard working group. There is nothing in any phase of the game that you can criticize anything that they do. They play with class, they play hard, they play fast and they’re playing the whole game. Everybody is involved when the ball is thrown or on a run " there is a lot of hats on the ball. They are hitting on all cylinders right now, so we’ve got to keep looking to see if there is a way to dent them, a way to find an edge somewhere, or a way to get something that we can feed to our kids that would be a confidence builder for them.”
“We need a strategy that will give us a chance in this game to win it. That’s going to take all week for us to come up with. By Saturday at 4:00 p.m. we will be close to having as much as we can come up with and that’s the way we are looking at it. It’s one day at a time and taking a phase here, a phase there and really work on it. If we can just be sound ourselves in all phases of the game, it gives us a chance. Our work this week is to try to be more sound than we have been on defense, more sound on offense and much more sound on special teams.”
“It’s a great opportunity and I, for one, am looking forward to it. I know our coaches are (looking forward to it) " that’s why you come to Colorado " the chance to play this game and these games. Here it is, it’s going to be right here on Folsom Field on national television and it can’t get any bigger or better than this.”
“I think anytime you are in a season like this and you are playing the best team in the conference, it is hard. You’ve got to build your kids up, they’ve got to believe that they can do it and you’ve got to coach confidence in them everyday.”
“We’re going to go out and try to win the game. Right now it is about winning the game against whomever it is that you are playing.”
ON CONTROLLING THE GAME WITH THE RUN?“I think we’re getting better, but we won’t know that until Saturday. Ideally that is what we are trying to shoot for. As Daniel Jolly gets further along in the offense and as our offensive line continues to develop, I think that will come. It certainly is a goal for us and we want that kind of balance, but I think we’re fortunate that we’ve got a quarterback and some receivers that allows us to get out of it when it isn’t working " if we’re not able to maintain control of the ball and the clock with the run game, that we’re able to get out of it, get right to the passing game and make some plays.”
ON THE DISPARITY BETWEEN HALVES?“We looked at anything that anybody else was doing to us first, to see if there were any adjustments that we didn’t prepare for or didn’t know about and we didn’t see anything. We made some halftime adjustments at Kansas State and for some reason we didn’t execute. Either some of the adjustments we are making aren’t getting through, or we’re not getting them through. Or the adjustments don’t have anything to do with it at all. There really isn’t time to make a lot (of adjustments). You can do a
couple things here and a couple things there, but you can’t make a whole bunch of adjustments. As we looked back through everything, we haven’t seen anybody come out and do anything to us that we said, ?oh man, they got us.’ In three of the four games the special teams have been issues. It seems like when things go bad in the second half or the third quarter, and this is pure speculation, it just feels like, ?oh no, we can’t overcome this.’ And that’s more of an issue for us. Being as introspective as much as we possibly can, if there’s something that is awry we want to find it and fix it. We’re looking trust me.”
ON THE CU DEFENSE?“Of course the defense’s confidence is hurting. We’ve struggled in fundamental areas and we’ve guys in position and haven’t made tackles. We bring heat and put all the pressure on the corners, and if we don’t get there then they get hung out. So of course there are lots of confidence issues with those guys, but they all want to work, they all want to get better and they’ve all had great attitudes about it. That gives you a chance and that’s where we are.”
“I don’t think that I’ve ever dealt with a team that has given up as many points as we are giving up. Maybe my first year as a head coach we finished 104th or 105th in (scoring) defense. Without changing a thing, three years later we were the No. 1 team in the country in scoring defense. So by staying with it, just keeping same the same terminology, not giving up and having the same teachers say the same thing, eventually guys catch on.”
ON BOBBY PURIFY?“Bobby was a little bit swollen this morning (ankle injury) and we are going to see what he can do today (in practice). He won’t have any contact, but we’ll give him a shot and see how it goes. I’d say at this point that he is questionable (for the Oklahoma game) and maybe doubtful.”
ON DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR VINCE OKRUCH?“Vince is a battler, Vince is a competitor and Vince is a good football coach and has been. You learn in this business, first of all that you don’t read the papers from August until January, and you got to have confidence in yourself. He’s got to have my confidence and he’s got to have the players’ confidence, and he’s got all those. If something doesn’t work, you just go back to work and keep trying to find a way to do it and keep being patient with the players ? you don’t point fingers ? and Vince has handled it that way.”
ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE?“They are getting much better in protection. I thought we really did a nice job (at Kansas State) and I though Joel did a nice job of moving himself around in the pocket and not taking a sack. Sometimes your sacks are coverage sacks and our receivers are doing a great job of getting themselves in the position to get open to where we don’t have to take coverage sacks.”
“The run blocking is always the hardest to bring along and we’re getting there, but we aren’t where we want to be yet.”